[4] Although illegal immigrants do not have legal permanent status in the country, locally they have a significant presence in the city's economy and job market.
As former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg explained, “Although [illegal aliens] broke the law by illegally crossing our borders or over-staying their visas and our businesses broke the law by employing them, our city’s economy would be a shell of itself had they not, and it would collapse if they were deported”.
[5][6] According to a Fiscal Policy Institute analysis of 2000 to 2006 data, there are 374,000 illegal immigrant workers in New York City, which makes up 10 percent of the resident workforce.
[1] Illegal immigrants can be found working in almost every industry in New York City performing a wide variety of tasks.
More than half of all dishwashers in the city are unlawfully residents, as are a third of all sewing machine operators, painters, cooks, construction laborers, and food preparation workers.
Illegal immigrant workers also make up close to 30 percent of the city's automotive service technicians and mechanics, waiters, maids and housekeeping cleaners, and carpenters.
[11] Mayor Bloomberg explained, “Our general policy in this area protects the confidentiality of law-abiding immigrants, regardless of their status, when they report a crime or visit a hospital or send their children to school”.
[12][13] On September 17, 2003, Bloomberg issued Executive Order 41 to protect the privacy of illegal immigrants and to grant them access to City services that they need and are entitled to receive.
[1][9][14][15] In January 2017, President Donald Trump enacted a new executive order that would allow illegal immigrants nationwide to be deported on lesser charges than previously.
[17] The New York City raids had been planned since January and focused mainly on people who immigrated from Central American countries.
[20] As a result, after the February raids, there were reports of increases in people looking for free legal help from immigrant-rights law firms.